Crime rate in Providence remains steady in 2013, with smallest police force in 18 years

Tuesday

Dec 31, 2013 at 9:17 PM

PROVIDENCE — Although many fewer police officers have been manning the barricade, major crime held steady in the capital city in 2013.The police disclosed Tuesday that there were 9,395 major crimes reported...

Gregory Smith Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Although many fewer police officers have been manning the barricade, major crime held steady in the capital city in 2013.

The police disclosed Tuesday that there were 9,395 major crimes reported in 2013, through Dec. 29, compared with 9,344 for the same period in 2012 — an increase of about half a percentage point.

“It’s a very good year for the Providence police,” said Police Chief Hugh T. Clements Jr.

“That’s with 80 less people,” said Deputy Chief Thomas F. Oates III, the fewest number of officers in 18 years. There are 407 officers on the roster, 20 fewer than in 2012 and 80 fewer than a peak in 2008-2009.

The current roster of 407 includes more than 20 nonworking officers who are injured or suspended from duty.

There is an assumption in the department that the more officers there are, the more deterrence there is and the more arrests occur, meaning there are fewer criminals on the loose.

Oates said he cannot put his finger on any one or two primary reasons for the crime rate staying about the same. He and Clements said, however, that the police are diligent despite their diminished numbers and that they pay particular attention to stopping crime sprees.

They meet regularly to discuss strategies and tactics in response to crime patterns and trends. If there is a rash of thefts from cars parked on the street in a particular neighborhood, for example, they might step up patrols or even park a “bait car” and lie in wait for the thieves.

Some criminals tend to get on a roll if they are not interrupted, Clements noted.

As of Dec. 29, there were 1,199 major violent crimes in 2013, matching the year-to-date figure for 2012. There were 14 murders, fewer than the annual average, compared with 17 in 2012.

Because murder can depend on factors as unpredictable as someone’s good luck or bad luck in surgery, shootings are a more meaningful indicator of the level of violence, Clements explained. There were 78 shootings, year to date in 2013, compared with 83 shootings, year to date in 2012.

The figures are preliminary, the police cautioned, and will be audited. Final figures for 2013 are expected to be released in the first quarter of the new year.

Said Oates, “Unfortunately, each one of these numbers represents a victim of a crime. We’re always going to strive to be better.”

Within the violent-crime total, the figures include: a 4.5 percent increase in robbery, from 412 to 430; a 3 percent increase in aggravated assault, from 608 to 627; and a 20 percent decrease in forcible sexual assault, from 162 to 129.

Peering more deeply into the robberies, Oates disclosed that there were 117 robberies with a firearm in 2013 compared with 131 robberies with a firearm in 2012, or a decrease of 11 percent.

There were 313 “other robberies” in 2013, compared with 281 the year before, or an increase of 11 percent. Robbery denotes a use of force, even without a weapon. The city continues to be plagued by muggings for cellphones, according to Oates, and those crimes fall mostly into this category.

The police pointed to two recent muggings in and near Waterplace Park downtown. Two youths stole cell phones in strong-arm robberies on Dec. 14 and Dec. 28.

At about 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 28, a 17-year-old who lives in the Hartford Park public housing project and an 18-year-old from the Manton neighborhood wrestled away an iPhone4 from Cailin Riggs, a 26-year-old East Sider, in a scuffle on the Francis Street side of the park.

But thanks to the iPhone’s location-tracking feature, officers learned that the phone was in the vicinity of Hartford and Bodell avenues and Syracuse Street, near the Hartford Park project.

A security officer monitoring surveillance cameras for the Providence Housing Authority spotted the two suspects, and they were arrested and identified by the victim as the muggers.

They were looking for some “quick money,” the 17-year-old admitted, by stealing someone’s cellphone downtown. They stole a cellphone on Dec. 14 and sold it for $200, he told the police.

The police said they are sure that the muggers would have done it again and again if they had not been apprehended.

Burglary was down by 6 percent, year to date, from 1,965 to 1,856; motor vehicle theft down by 16 percent, from 1,168 to 982; and larceny up by 7 percent, from 5,012 to 5,358.